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As mentioned at https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/77438-looking-back-on-the-balancing-strategy/, a new design document is required. This is my proposal for a design document. If the community approves of this, it could be adopted and design documents could be revised for the civilisations. This is a design for the general gameplay, not for any civilisations. Most elements will remain the same, I've only mentioned elements that could change or which need to be clearly defined. All features which require mechanics not yet added to the game are highlighted in red.

you know our audience ( multiplayer) and their rage. example: [GET BACK A23]

This would be good, yes. I'll update the proposal to reflect this. The eventual design document should include this, certainly. However, for this proposal I'm only listing any features that I think should be changed or which I think need to clarified. This sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure if it really fits in the general design document. This could be done along with the pages for the individual civilisations, but I think the overall design document should describe how the game should play in general, not the specifics of civilisation design. I will add the information about viable counters, thank you. Perhaps, but I'd like to keep this issue as centralised as possible for now. I have tried to avoid adding anything too controversial, so I don't think that should be too much of an issue at the moment.

We took the legal ones and put them into the game. Not all maps use them, though. I even made snow variation for A26. Thanks, I guess? See #5962 (UnitAI Gathering optimisations) – Wildfire Games That would be => [Differential] D2372 [WIP] - Support for mining. (wildfiregames.com)

I suggest that a more in depth discussion of counter relationships for each unit type and any unusual information about attack interactions or composition synergies/anti-synergies should be added. E.g. for the spearman line: Spearmen will usually be the basic melee troop, armed with spears. They will have moderate damage, armor, and speed, and a strong attack bonus against cavalry. They will have a slightly longer attack range than sword units [interaction quirk] and therefore benefit more from fighting in dense formations than swordsmen [synergy]. They should decisively lose to an equal value of pikes in dense formation fighting [situational counter]. In equal value comparisons, Spearmen should effectively counter sword cavalry, spear cavalry, rams, catapults, and artillery towers. They should be countered by elephants, swordsmen, skirmishers, slingers, archers, crossbowmen, javelin cavalry, archer cavalry, bolt shooters, and fortresses. (note: when you write it up this way, the spearman line looks pretty bad huh?) Other suggestions: I think the Mechanics section needs to be filled out with more information about civ phases, techs, resource harvesting, production, and all that jazz. I'm sure that was the intent already for that section but its worth making explicit. I would also add a separate section after the Units & Structures to cleanly summarize of the key counter cycles: Counter Cycle Design The tactics of combat engagements will be characterized by the following type-counter relationships: melee cavalry > ranged infantry > spearmen > melee cavalry ranged cavalry > swordsmen, spearmen > melee cavalry > infantry archers > ranged cavalry [etc...] And lastly, I would add a section about civ design principles. This should lay out the logic of designing a multiplayer-viable civ, the temporal and geographic bound of the game's representation, maybe list some civilizations. Others with a stronger sense of the game's vision can opine on what to say here. The one thing I would urge you to put in writing is that Every civilization will have access to at least one viable counter to every established unit type. While that sounds completely obvious, I think it is important to stress because it runs counter to the intuitive civ development methodology the game is built around. We're not starting with the question "what would be a fun faction concept to play with." We are starting with real civilizations and trying to represent them in the game. But real civilizations were not balanced. They did not always have answers to every military doctrine. When they met a doctrine they could not deal with they either changed their own identity or ceased to exist, which makes it hard to to produce iconic, accurate, and balanced representations. Make these changes and I think you will have a good format and foundation to build from. Then the real work of debating about design and balance philosophy can begin.

I think being open sourced is both a blessing and a curse. In the end you need someONE (or at least a very small group like 3 ppl, this way you always have either min 2 opposed or in favor) taking the lead and put down the hammer on what gets into the game. The more people that will join the discussions, the harder it will be to agree to something and it will develop into endless debates (just look at politcs, lol). But it's a difficult task indeed for one person to carry that weight. And you will lose and gain people along the way regardless. I agree with @azayrahmad that a proper design document needs to be in place and enforced, for people that are willing to contribute. But when it comes new ideas, it's best to have one person (or the small team) in the lead making those final calls imo.

I've posted my proposal for a general design document at https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/78095-design-document-proposal/

Sort of a balancing topic: Remove armor increases for ranking up melee units. It seems OP that melee units (take for example carth merc cav) gain 1 pierce and hack armor with each rank. It is a little much for melee units to receive HP, damage AND armor with each rank. Just damage and HP would be better right?

Worker Elephant allows workers to easily "guerrilla mining" on the map, and it is difficult for the enemy to even find out which gold mine you used to mine. In addition, I think the biggest significance of Worker Elephant is that P1 can hunt everywhere, and you can at least save the 300 wood cost of 3 granaries.

I'm not in favor of separating currency and metal. Maybe Europeans and Americans think that iron and copper are very different from gold and silver, but Chinese people don't think so. Copper is a precious metal for China. We use copper to make coins. When copper is not enough, we also use iron to cast money. I'm more concerned with joining some factories, cottage industries or plantations to get the metal, like vineyards, pottery factories, Small family textile industry. Plantations can be like farmland for farmers to plant. And the pottery factory can produce a metal trickle, but it takes up the population. Small family textile industry can get metal trickle down to every dwelling, but will reduce the population support that every dwelling provides.

Right. Because of the citizen-soldier concept, any cost adjustments or any stats changes, such as speed, have an economic impact. Without the c-s concept, these aren't such an issue. It's one of the reasons I got rid of it in DE (plus soldiers randomly chopping trees in the middle of a battle due to mis-click, lol).

That is indeed great if the initial civilisations are random. However, if the players chose their civilisations then you can simply remember who picked what. I like this idea, it will help with specs' discussions and analysis.

I think moving (most) heroes to the CC would integrate them a little bit more into the game. I know it's a simple change, moving them from the fortress to the CC, but I'm thinking about the psychology of the player, seeing the Hero there in the training panel from the outset, instead of 15 mins later when they build a fortress. Honestly, I'd really push for something along the lines of DE's hero choices, but I know that's too radical (!!!) for the current crop of stakeholders. You almost need a whole new set of players and developers in order to propose significant improvements, because all of the current stakeholders are so wed to the status quo. Don't say I'm wrong, when even simple changes are controversial.

Hello everyone, We're happy to release the first M1 Mac Testing version of 0 A.D. Alpha 25b We provide this in the hope of finding and squashing bugs efficiently. It may however contain bugs. If you choose to test, please keep that in mind. EDIT: Since the bundle is not signed on certain macOS version you might need to unlock the app. You can do so by running the following command. xattr -cr /Applications/0\ A.D..app Download Link Things you may want to test (non-exhaustive) Launch a random game Launch a skirmish. Connect to the lobby Play on the lobby with someone Launch Atlas and try things out there Open Unit tests demo (To see if there any breakage in displaying entity's) (It's in scenarios) Enable feedback and see if it works (Main menu) Video Connect to and use mod.io Test replaying new games Test Screenshots (F2) Test Big Screenshots (Maj+F2) Test hotkeys Test ranked games Test Saving and loading a game. Test Quickload/Quicksave (Optional) Upload the feedback files (See see wiki:GameDataPaths) What to do if I see a weird red line ? Make sure to enable GLSL in the game options. What to do if I have an Out Of Sync? You should go in your logs folder (see wiki:GameDataPaths), find the replay (commands.txt at least), the mainlog/interestinglog and find the OOS dump folder. Zip all these files and upload them here. Ideally, you should coordinate with the OOS players so that they upload their own OOS dump, so we can compare them. What to do if I have an error or notice something weird? Post your commands.txt (replay) and the interestinglog.html file from your folder. You can also reply to this thread. What to do if the game crashes Update your crashlog.dmp and crashlog.txt see wiki:GameDataPaths

This happened during an intense game. My problem is, I have 16GB of ram, but only 50% of that is being used. So why did it crash? Another thing I observed was, the game audio randomly disappeared halfway through the game, causing me to perform badly and let my teammate die as I couldn't hear his pings

I have now updated up to mission 24, the battle of Gaugamela. The link to download those missions is here: https://github.com/SciGuy42/Macedonia_0ad/tree/a25 Here is a video of the Macedonia 24 - Gaugamela:

The reason they get armour is because in this era the more elite soldiers could afford to buy their own gear and so it is reasonable that they get better armour the more experienced they get. Currently it is excruciatingly hard to make meaningful use of that experience bonus unless you are a Greek state with hoplite tradition or have idle troops in a barracks for 4 minutes.

BoonGUI minimap is different.

I wonder if there would be also a benefit in performance of having mine structures with villagers garrisoned inside. What proportion of the lag is due to workers movements (or pathfinding calculation)?

Yes and No. I think the armor improvement is because they visually get more armor with each rank. It was deemed too much work to have Forge techs make the appearance change and it was compromised that ranking should give the appearance change. Also, ranking was conceived as being much more important than it currently is.

Orfebrería in Spanish, but is more than just jewelry. Us metalworking to make art and utensils.

Some changes only make sense in a larger context, so cannot be made little by little.

Those people think that there are too many gold mines because there are too few uses for metal now. Once soldiers need to consume a lot of metal, they will want to have 100 gold mines on the map.

Every civilization should have a kind of plantation, a factory and a small family textile industry. The Greeks, for example, were olive groves, pottery factories, and linen. The Chinese are tea gardens, lacquerware factories and silk and satin. Indians are spice gardens, pottery factories and cotton cloth. The Persians are vineyards, blanket factories and woolen fabrics.

Some civilizations can be leather or lacquer factories, depending on the faction, special names and models. But they are all generic buildings, the generic name is the factory, which does not require workers but occupies the population.

I'm attack move enjoyer. Call of the arms is big step. (That was my concept).

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOLD AS A RESOURCE IN THE MAIN GAME. Enjoy the Choice

First, we want to make warehouses buildable in neutral areas, as a result mining camps are usually not CC protected. And each small gold mine is limited to 5~10 people. Players need to distribute workers in several unprotected mining camps. Attacking enemy gold mines and finding those gold mines that are not easy to be found by the enemy will become a interesting thing.

I've seen these posts and your idea is a bit like a combination of Rise of Nations and Age of Empires 3 and The Golden Horde.

I don't like 3 resource costs. I try to stick to only 2 if possible.

If soldiers can add the ability to build siege weapons in the wild, then theoretically they can add the ability to build rafts and sampans near water.

If it wasn't for C-S concept, I'd suggest: Melee Soldiers Food Metal Ranged Soldiers Wood Metal Exceptions: Scout Cavalry & Slingers (aka "Trash units") Food only Right. The stone and metal mines right up against the CC are weird. Numerous Skirmish maps fix this, but it remains in random maps.

You think that the economy of the Iberians is protected by the city wall, so they can continue to produce food to supply the cavalry without fear of attack. In fact, as long as the cavalry is added with more metal costs, this "economic security" of the Iberians can be broken. ”, because no player will use walls to surround gold mines on the map.

0 A.D. in Print (19/Jul/05) web.archive.org

Hard to say... Maybe the Persians or the SeLoseCids...

I think the way the roles are divided are pretty good and logical and is something that makes 0AD more unique imo. It takes some time to learn the differences for new players but learning is not a bad thing. You wouldn't hire a mercenary to collect wood, they are hired to fight. Champions are proper combat units, surely you wouldn't send your best trained men to work in a mine. You would send lower class citizens to do that job. Not saying it's perfect though but i think the role dividing for units should stay.

I think there are some sort of authority are needed to enforce the design. There are code reviewers that could ensure all approved changes are according to the guideline provided by the design. Unfortunately, as is the point of my comment, the design document itself is not yet clearly defined in term of balancing. Yes there are some general advice on the document that says we have to reduce micromanagement, but I think this is too subjective to be able to define a line. By defining it clearly (what is micro, what are the behavior constitutes as micro and which could be tolerated, what should be eliminated to enforce this) it should help people to understand it more clearly. We should be able to quote a specific part of design document to stop any prolonged debates. The last time I was active here is around perhaps A24, where people complain about nerfed Roman. But there is no statement in design document that says Roman should or should not be weaker or stronger than other civs.

To be honest, I think the call to for a design document isn´t rooted in practical purposes. I would consider the hope that a design document provides misleading. You might think that things get done once it is clearly put in a design document, but issues don´t magically solve itself when there is a design document. I expect any design document to quickly get stale. So rather than saying this is the design document, It would be probably better to set goals for the next 3 alphas and count how much has been achieved to reach these goals. There was some talk about faction differentiation, but what have the discussion since A24 delivered? Hoplite tradition and moving possibly kush pyramids to p1. You can´t say we should achieve this goal and just wait until it is achieved.

No, statistics on which civ players choose, whether win loss/ratio fits statistical expectations, length of games and other collectable data, then trying to make sense of all the data. Complement it with questionnaires as to what people like about civs and what not. The goal should be to have all civs be somewhat attractive for whatever reasons, if it's just the sound track that makes a civ popular that is fine as well If those "we need ultimate balance for competitive games" people have a couple interesting civs which work for them to choose from that is good enough, they just have to have the possibility of a filter which is currently lacking. Contribute redirects to https://code.wildfiregames.com/source/design/ which returns an error --- @maroder A design document should be about principles, not stats or similar details. What it could describe without thinking much about it: How to update the design document (process) If I want to add a civ, what do I have to fulfill If I want to add a map, what do I have to make sure If I want to add a model, what requirements are there If I want to write a new ui, what must I make sure of How to bring historical facts to the users attention How should city building aspect work How should fights work on a meta level What is territory meant to achieve many more For instance the removal of kennels without the backing of a design document shouldn't have happened IMHO.

macedonia that has some phase 2 advantage, siege or thracian dark layers, if possible a cheap battering ram that is easier to destroy, in case it becomes spam. iberians need the soliferrum in phase 2 or as technology for the sword champions for a cost in metal per individual unit the carthaginians have mercenary iberian sword cavalry and the iberians don't have that unit, they should put the iberians too. britans and lusitanians have a druida for war, that will benefit them a little, galus have the carnuco, that gives a bufo of attack is already enough with that support add lusitanians that the capture or attack on buildings is not by default in formation roman road technology for the Romans to move faster in their territory until the A26 comes out and we don't see han china finally inside, I don't have much else.

Periwinkle!

Saying that you don’t feel playing 0a.d doesn’t make sense because 0a.d isn’t a ready game, it’s constantly changing, but I understand that, it’s been a few years playing the same version, it’s normal to feel different, but you can get used to it with the changes. Anyway, we can bring some necessary changes back in a25.

Maybe something else for @Bigtiger and @LordGood ?

specific stones with quarry cuts in could be the depletable stones in the meantime

So why not differentiate mines into: stone, base metal (iron, copper), and precious metal (gold, silver). Then you could mine gold/silver, which would show up as coin among your resources, and can be used and acquired through more ways than one, as described by you, similarly to the way Nescio uses silver? Base metal is used as metal is used now. Stone mines would be large quarries built in to a cliff face. There were a lot of different types of mines in the ancient world, including placer mining (alluvial), pit mines and shaft mines, so there's a lot of possibilities here: On another note, I've always been in love with the idea of finally adding "brick" as a standard resource for ancient RTS games, produced by a brick maker (a structure close to water, access to clay). The majority of structures in the ancient world and by most civs in the game were largely built from mud-brick or fired brick. This way building-resources can be balanced better, be made more sensible: basic structures used mostly brick and wood. monumental or defensive structures use mostly stone and wood (and maybe some brick as well). Brick building = weak. Stone buildings = strong.

Right, I think taking cues from other games is appropriate if those features make sense together in the overall gameplay context. I think they would. In fact, to integrate these ideas better into the game, perhaps you don't build a storehouse on a slot, but rather you "capture" the storehouse that's already there, and now the Mine Shaft or Stone Quarry is yours.